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en-usCopyright 2015 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only.Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/30% of U.S. Homeowners Are Mortgage-Free, Zillow Sayshttp://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/10/mortgage-free-homeowners-us-zillow/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/10/mortgage-free-homeowners-us-zillow/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/10/mortgage-free-homeowners-us-zillow/#commentsFiled under: News,FinancingMedia coverage of the real estate market has focused so much on the mortgage woes of homeowners over the past five years, you might be excused for believing that only a small minority of homeowners actually, well, own their homes -- mortgage-free. But you'd be mistaken, a report released by listing service Zillow suggests.

As of the third quarter of 2012, nearly 30 percent of homeowners, or just about 21 million Americans, were free and clear of a mortgage. Zillow told AOL Real Estate that that rate is 3 percentage points lower than the number of mortgage-free homeowners in 2010, indicating that the country's debt burden has creeped up over the last 2 years.

But the percentage of mortgage-free homeowners is virtually the same as in 2000, a fact that may come as surprise considering the steep price declines of the last five years. The rate of full ownership varies from region to region based on median home price and age.
Areas with a higher median age and lower median home price have the highest proportion of homeowners who own their homes outright. New York, Cleveland and Miami ranked as the markets with the highest rates of full ownership, while Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Las Vegas had the lowest rates.

"Homeowners unencumbered by a mortgage may be more flexible than indebted homeowners, and therefore more apt or willing to list their homes or enter the market for a new property," Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries said in a statement. "By determining where these homeowners are located, we can also gain insight into potential inventory and demand in those areas."

]]>100 percent home equityhome equityhomeownershipmortgage free homeownersreal estate marketTeke Wiggin2013-01-10T16:40:00 00:00Home Affordability Likely Hit Record High in 2012http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/10/2012-home-affordability-index-record-high/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/10/2012-home-affordability-index-record-high/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/10/2012-home-affordability-index-record-high/#commentsFiled under: News,Buying2012 will probably go down as the most affordable year on record for homebuyers, according to the National Association of Realtors. A combination of depressed home prices and rock-bottom interest rates created perfect-storm home buying conditions that Americans may not see again for decades, experts say.

NAR's Housing Affordability Index hit 1982 in November 2012, and the trade group projects the index to average 194 for all of 2012. An index of only 100 indicates a level of affordability where a median-income household has exactly enough income to qualify for a mortgage, assuming the loan requires a 20 percent down payment and an annual mortgage payment equal to 25 percent of annual income.

The housing market reached record levels of affordability even as home prices began to rise. But rapidly rising rental rates and record-low mortgage interest rates more than offset the erosion to affordability caused by price gains, according to Jed Kolko, chief economist at Trulia. The listing service, which measures home affordability based on rental rates instead of income, recently found that buying a home in the summer of 2012 was 45 percent cheaper than renting in the 100 largest metros.

The party is almost over, however, experts say. Home prices are finally beginning to rise faster than rental rates, chipping away at affordability, Kolko said. In addition, most industry observers believe that mortgage interest rates will bottom out and begin to appreciate in 2013.

Nonetheless, home prices are still likely to remain far below their housing-boom peaks. The NAR projects that its affordability index will average 160 in 2013. The record levels of affordability recorded over the past few years mask a major roadblock that has prevented many potential buyers from taking advantage of low housing costs.

"Although 2012 was highest on record, the excessively tight underwriting precluded many would-be homebuyers from locking-in generational low interest rates," said Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR. However, as lenders iron out settlements over faulty practices and regulatory agencies finalize mortgage rules, credit could loosen up, according to experts. And that would allow many more consumers to capitalize on what is expected to still be a highly affordable housing market, they say.

Billy Bob Thornton and Angelina Jolie's former home in Beverly Hills, Calif., sold on New Year's Eve, ringing in 2013 by shutting the door on the ex-power couple's burned-out romance. The home sold for $8 million -- nearly $2 million less than Thornton listed it for in October -- listing service Zillow reported.

Actor-screenwriter Thornton, who lived in the home alone after splitting from fellow film star Jolie, reportedly went to great lengths to protect his privacy when marketing the home. The online listing featured only one photo (above), and house tours were arranged through private appointment only, according to Zillow.

The hacienda-style home features exquisite landscaping with fountains, a paddle tennis court and a pool. And its interior, which includes nine bedrooms, is jam-packed with such amenities as a recording studio (Thornton also is a musician), gym and library. Thornton bought the home in 2000, the year he married Jolie, for $3.75 million, the Los Angeles Times reported.

]]>angelina jolieangelina jolie homebeverly hillsbilly bob thorntonbilly bob thornton homecelebrity real estatehomes for salethornton jolieTeke Wiggin2013-01-10T13:47:00 00:00Luxurious Kauai Cottage Gets You in the Club (House of the Day)http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/10/luxurious-kauai-cottage-gets-you-in-the-club-house-of-the-day/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/10/luxurious-kauai-cottage-gets-you-in-the-club-house-of-the-day/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/10/luxurious-kauai-cottage-gets-you-in-the-club-house-of-the-day/#commentsFiled under: News,House of the Day

Nestled into Kukuiula, a private beach club on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai, this luxury cottage offers sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean that stretch beyond its palm-tree-dotted lawn. Listed at $3.995 million, it's this week's #housepornthurs champ, submitted by @discovercrc. (A tip of the hat to @PartnersTrust for contributing this week's runner-up.)

The "plantation-style" home is 3,623 square feet, with four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a great room, a media room and a guesthouse. The home's many windows and doors flood the home with natural light.

We'd say the pool is the home's biggest head-turner -- viewable from the porch and surrounded by stone pavers and exquisite landscaping. The home also comes with an ensemble of designer furniture.

Got a tip for House of the Day? Know of an exceptional or unusual property currently listed for sale? Please email krisanne.alcantara@huffingtonpost.com with your suggestions and be sure to include links to listing details and photos. (Due to the volume of response, we unfortunately are unable to reply to each submission.)

]]>2013 ways to sell your homehome selling tacticshome selling tipshow to sell your homehow to sell your home 2013newyear 2013ways to sell your homeways to sell your home 2013Teke Wiggin2013-01-09T17:25:00 00:00'The New Subprime' Mortgage: Risky Loans Emerge in Twist on Seller Financinghttp://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/09/the-new-subprime-mortgage-risky-loans-emerge-in-twist-on-sell/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/09/the-new-subprime-mortgage-risky-loans-emerge-in-twist-on-sell/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/09/the-new-subprime-mortgage-risky-loans-emerge-in-twist-on-sell/#commentsFiled under: NewsMortgages resembling the kind of subprime loans that were blamed for the foreclosure crisis are creeping back into the market, leaving some experts and regulators alarmed. The loans give a relatively new twist to seller financing, putting homeownership within reach of borrowers who can't qualify for a conventional mortgage. But they also carry terms that some experts say are predatory.

"Seller financing is the new subprime," said Wayne Sanford, a consultant who helps some seller financiers vet borrowers. It's a "trend," one top regulator said, that he's "definitely watching very closely" because the mortgages have the trappings of risky pre-crisis loans: They charge sky-high interest rates, often turn a blind eye to credit scores and force refinances within a short period of time.

And borrowers only months out of foreclosure are able to qualify for them.

'The New Subprime'

Seller financing -- in which the seller of a property lends money to a buyer to purchase it -- isn't new. It was common in previous eras, then was mostly used by individual sellers unable to find buyers who qualified for conventional mortgages.

Now a growing number of real estate investment firms specialize in these transactions. They snap up foreclosures and sell them -- along with home loans -- to borrowers with less-than-stellar credit. The financing has flown mostly under the radar since the financial collapse, perhaps accounting for the widespread belief that a person who has been in foreclosure must wait three years to qualify for a mortgage again. Tim Dwyer, president of title insurance company Entitle Direct, estimates that fewer than 10 percent of current mortgages are seller-financed.

That may change. Investors who have been rushing to buy foreclosed homes over the last few years may want to cash out on their investments as housing values rebound. One way is to sell to subprime borrowers who lost their homes in the foreclosure crisis but are eager to buy again.

The foreclosure crisis has "dramatically reduced the universe of people who can buy homes," said Guy Cecela, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance. Borrowers who are locked out of the mortgage market, he said, represent a gaping window of opportunity to investment firms that are willing to lend (and simultaneously sell) to them.

Underwriting - With Your Gut

Capital Blueprints started offering seller-financing in 2008, according to the company's founder and CEO Kevin Kaczmarek. The Indianapolis-based real estate investment firm has bought, rehabbed and sold 250 homes using seller financing over the past four years, he said.

He estimates that about half of the buyers of those homes have been through foreclosure. "Part of it ... is you kind of get a gut feel," he said about Capital Blueprint's underwriting process. "We're willing to take that chance."

That often means overlooking subpar credit scores when evaluating borrowers, Kaczmarek said. In fact, one of Capital's best clients was a man with a 425 credit score who borrowed and bought from the company in 2008, he said. In contrast, the average credit score of a borrower who closed a primary mortgage in October was 750, according to Ellie Mae, a mortgage software provider.

Filling a Credit Void?

The mortgages can offer borrowers potential savings in a market where rental rates are soaring. Marty Boardman, chief financial officer of Rising Sun Capital Group, said the typical home that his company sells would cost $1,100 to rent, but only $900 to own if a borrower uses the company's seller financing.

Sanford said that seller financing "if used properly, can be a huge benefit to families." They are filling a lending void that consumer advocates and real estate professionals have lamented for years by extending credit to people who would otherwise have no hope of purchasing property, he said.

Triple Interest Rate, Double the Default Rate

But Sanford cautioned that seller financing also sets up some vulnerable borrowers for foreclosure.

The risk partly stems from the terms of the loans. Typically, they carry an interest rate that is sometimes as high as 10 percent, about three times the current average rate of a conventional 30-year-fixed rate mortgage. They also typically require a down paymen of about 10 percent.

A 10 percent down payment is not remarkably low (Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages only require a 3.5 percent down payment), but it is still less than half of todays' average, which was 22 percent in October, according to Ellie Mae.

The mortgage's most exotic -- and risky -- feature, however, is probably its brief length. Though a seller-financed loan is frequently structured like a 30-year loan, it often forces a borrower to pay off the outstanding balance of his mortgage in from three to seven years in a "balloon payment."

Capital Blueprints usually requires a balloon payment after seven years, Kaczmarek said. That could be one reason why Capital Blueprints mortgages' have a default rate of what Kaczmarek says is about 8 percent.

That's about twice the average default rate for conventional home loans, according to Cecela, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance.

Seller-financiers often require balloon payments so that they can cash out their investments more quickly. "They don't want to take a long-term commitment to recoup their money," said David Crump, director of legal research for the National Home Builders Association.

Boardman claims that the loans still give homeowners "ample time to become credit-worthy again" and obtain a conventional mortgage to pay off the seller-financed one, however. Rising Sun Capital Group offers a seller-financed mortgage that requires a balloon payment after 5 years, he said.

'A Recipe for Disaster?'

Some critics say that using a seller-financed mortgage to transition into a long-term and more sustainable mortgage is fraught with hazards. Kathleen Day, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending, said the balloon payment is "predatory." If a homeowner slips on any sort of debt payment, Day noted, he or she probably won't be able to qualify for a conventional mortgage when it comes time to make the balloon payment.

Cecela called seller-financed loans offered by some investment firms "a recipe for disaster." "A huge number of these loans are going to default," he said.

Despite similarities between the notorious subprime mortgages of the housing boom and today's seller-financed loans by investment firms, there's an important difference: Even if they become more common, they wouldn't pose a risk to the financial system.

That's because seller financiers do not sell their mortgages to major lenders or government-sponsored entities whose failure could require bailouts. Seller financiers assume the full risk of the loans.

Nimble Foreclosers

But that's acceptable to some real estate firms, in part, because they typically can complete foreclosures much more quickly than banks. The main reason why? They don't have enormous backlogs of foreclosures like major lenders do, Sanford said. As buyers and sellers of real estate, they also can flip repossessed homes much more efficiently than banks.

And Sanford said that the firms are also able to absorb foreclosure-related losses because they may "pad their pockets a little more" in the first place, by selling their properties at above-market prices.

Why are they able to sell at above-market prices? Because they've cornered the market on subprime borrowers.

Dodd-Frank's Potential Impact

Experts say that new mortgage rules that are part of Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and the Consumer Protection Act that may be introduced later this month could make seller financing at least marginally more difficult. One rule will require a license of any entity that originates more than three mortgages in one year, and another would ban balloon payments on loans whose interest rates exceed a market rate by 6.5 percentage points.

Capital Blueprints and Rising Sun Capital Group's rates fall just short of that threshold, however.

]]>Capital BlueprintsGuy CecelaKevin KaczmarekMarty Boardmannew subprime mortgagesRising Sun Capital Grouprisky mortgagesseller financed mortgageseller financed mortgagesseller financingsellerfinancedmortgagesubprime mortgagesTim DwyerWayne SanfordTeke Wiggin2013-01-09T16:15:00 00:00Hurricane Sandy and 2012's Other Natural Disasters Could Cost Homeowners for Years to Comehttp://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/04/hurricane-sandy-2012-natural-disasters-cost/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/04/hurricane-sandy-2012-natural-disasters-cost/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/04/hurricane-sandy-2012-natural-disasters-cost/#commentsFiled under: NewsMother Nature certainly made herself known in 2012, unleashing unusually destructive wildfires and storms across the U.S. Hurricane Sandy alone caused up to $50 billion in damage. While the spate of disasters weighs on homeowners in the near-term in the form of reconstruction costs, it may have significant long-term effects on homeowners and federal, state and local government.

2012's natural disasters could spur some homeowners and governments to take more precautionary measures to protect their properties against damage, experts say. And, though insurers may not want to admit it, their specter could nudge up insurance premiums.

Dr. Tom Jeffery, chief hazard scientist at analytics firm CoreLogic, says that this year's disasters are likely to persuade more city and state governments to hedge their bets against the possibility of severe weather.

"Homeowners really don't have any way to avoid having a hurricane occur, but certainly, as New Orleans has proven, you can build and develop mitigation measures," he said. "With the amount of damage that was done with Sandy, it does become cost-effective to start to consider those things."

"Hurricane Sandy, just one year removed from the devastation in the Northeast from Hurricane Irene, demonstrated the importance of preparation for events that are possible, even though they may not have a high statistical probability," wrote Jeffery in "CoreLogic 2012 Natural Hazard Risk Summary and Analysis," a report released by CoreLogic on Thursday.

It's possible more homeowners may also take additional measures to protect their homes, and that buyers may steer clear of regions that are now known to be susceptible to disasters. But Jeffery says that history shows that disasters don't seem to affect buying or building activity as much as one might think.

"In the aftermath of hurricanes, there's an awful lot of damage," he said. "Yet it doesn't seem to deter anybody from wanting to build on the coast where they have a beautiful scenic view."

In the case of wildfires, which in 2012 caused the third-highest loss of acreage in more than 50 years, governments are likely to ramp up efforts to reduce flammable matter in fire-prone areas. And homeowners, wary of last year's damage, may be more inclined to adopt the practice, he added.

Reducing the amount of natural material that fuels wildfires is a change from previous strategy, which stressed fire prevention, he said. "We had Smokey the Bear syndrome," he said. "That's kind of gone by the wayside."

Insurance Premiums Could Rise

2012's natural disasters could also push flood insurance premiums higher. Premiums are set by the Federal Emergency Management Agency's National Flood Insurance Program -- the sole provider of primary flood insurance to homeowners. (Homeowners can also purchase additional "excess flood insurance" offered by private companies for damage that may exceed FEMA's coverage cap of $250,000 in building damage and $100,000 in personal property damage.)

Premiums on flood insurance for secondary homes already are set to rise because of recent legislation that eliminated subsidies provided by FEMA under the National Flood Insurance Program.

There's been a "recent push by the government to make the flood insurance program self-sustaining rather than heavily subsidized," said Burl Daniel, an insurance expert in Fort Worth, Texas.

A bill that passed Friday granting permission to FEMA, already reportedly $18 billion in debt, to borrow up to $9.7 billion to pay Hurricane Sandy claims may only increase calls for the NFIP to become self-sufficient. That could translate into higher premiums on the primary residences of many homeowners.

FEMA would not comment on the possibility of raising premiums, calling it a "longer-term" issue. But a spokesman did say that FEMA is attempting to spread word of "advisory base flood elevation" guidelines to homeowners in Sandy-impacted regions. Residents there would be well-advised to heed the guidelines, he said.

"If the Advisory Base Flood Elevation indicates a higher flood risk and a homeowner doesn't adequately elevate to mitigate that risk, when the flood maps are revised, they could face higher rates for being below the base flood elevation," he said.

To correct errors, they would have to raise insurance rates of some customers.

Homeowner's insurance premiums are even more likely to rise in areas hit by Hurricane Sandy, Daniel said. "The portion of the premium that goes to pay windstorm claims could rise over time," he said.

That's because the portion of premiums that cover wind-damage claims is determined using loss data usually spread over a 10-year period. In contrast, flood insurance premiums are based on the likelihood of flood damages over a 100-year period. Sandy's claims may have more of an impact on a 10-year average used to determine windstorm premiums than on a 100-year average used to calculate flood insurance premiums.

Allstate, a provider of homeowner's insurance, would not comment on whether it might raise homeowners insurance premiums in Sandy-affected areas. But it did say that "Allstate's prices need to reflect the costs of providing home insurance."

Security cameras installed by a Raleigh, N.C., "Redditor" and her husband recently caught a gang of robbers plundering their home just before New Year's Eve, they say.

The security video (see below) apparently shows three thieves entering the home's living room after kicking in a door. The homeowner, Beth Robinson, said on the Reddit website that the robbers removed various items including an Xbox, iPod and TV. (Robinson's husband, Matt, is pictured above holding one of the security cameras.)

"It's a scary thing to happen to you," she told AOL Real Estate. "You feel violated and like things are out of your control."

The video sparked a debate among the Reddit community about firearms ownership, echoing the common arguments for and against gun control that have flared up in the wake of the mass killing in Newtown, Conn.

One poster on the user-generated-content site said that his home has been broken into twice, but asked: "What in my house is worth someone's life? ... Guns kill people and possessions aren't worth it."

Another replied: "You're right, guns do kill people. So when the third robber comes into your home with a gun, just let him shoot you. [Forget] being able to defend yourself."

Robinson said that she reported the incident to the police, but so far no suspects have been identified.

]]>beth robinsonmatt robinsonRaleigh North Carolinaraleigh robberyredditreddit gun controlreddit robbery videorobbery videosecurity camera robberyTeke Wiggin2013-01-02T17:58:00 00:00Renters Looking to Own Are Ready to Buy, PulteGroup Survey Sayshttp://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/02/renters-want-buy-home-pultegroup-survey/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/02/renters-want-buy-home-pultegroup-survey/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/02/renters-want-buy-home-pultegroup-survey/#commentsFiled under: News,Buying,Investing,RentingAmong renters who one day hope to own a home, a poll finds a dramatic increase in the number who now say that they intend to buy in the near future. Offering more evidence of a swing toward homeownership as the housing market continues to recover, the survey by PulteGroup reports that about 6 in 10 of those renters plan on buying a home in the next two years.

The PulteGroup survey's results fit other findings in 2012 that bode well for home prices and sales in 2013, according to Jed Kolko, chief economist of listing service Trulia.

Kolko attributes the reported rise in renters' interest in homebuying to an improved economy, which has helped potential buyers save for down payments, as well as to rising home prices, which have bolstered consumer confidence in the housing market. A Trulia survey conducted in 2012 also showed a significant increase in renters who intend to buy, he said.

The top reasons renters polled in the survey cited for wanting to buy in the near future were:

o. They like being able to call themselves homeowners (49 percent).
o. They view it as a good financial investment (44 percent).
o. They need more space for their family/children (36 percent).

The PulteGroup survey also found that, compared to two years ago, twice as many homeowners now expect to have adult children or aging parents living with them.

Thirty-one percent of respondents to the 2012 survey said that they anticipate at least one adult child moving back home in the future, while 32 percent expect to take in an aging parent.

The demographic shift to multigenerational homes is likely to spark construction of more "smart" homes that break from recent tradition, Petroulakis said. "What's important is that the home is planned smart ... that it really maximizes your communal space."

Extra bathrooms, downstairs bedrooms and large kitchens are examples of features that characterize these homes, she said.

Multigenerational homes share of total households already has swelled over the past decade. They are up by 30 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

PulteGroup says its survey of renters was conducted online in March 2012 among 506 adults who rent a home or apartment across the United States and intend to purchase a home in the future. The survey on multigenerational housing was conducted online in September 2012 among 511 homeowners across the U.S., ages 35 and older, with children between the ages of 16-30 and among 550 U.S. homeowners, ages 18-65, with living parents. The margin of sampling error is reported as 4.3 percent.

]]>homebuyinghomebuying interesthomebuying interest increasehomebuying sentimentpultegrouppultegroup surveysrenter homebuyerrentersrenters want buy homeTeke Wiggin2013-01-02T16:10:00 00:00'Shadow Inventory' Threat Continues to Recede, CoreLogic Sayshttp://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/02/shadow-inventory-corelogic-report/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/02/shadow-inventory-corelogic-report/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2013/01/02/shadow-inventory-corelogic-report/#commentsFiled under: News,Financing,ForeclosuresThe number of homes in the "shadow inventory," once considered a serious threat to a real estate recovery, continues to drop as the housing market absorbs foreclosures, analytics firm CoreLogic said in a report it released today.

The shadow inventory refers to the pent-up supply of homes that are either in foreclosure or have seriously delinquent mortgages and are expected to eventually hit the market. The supply of the shadow inventory dipped from 2.6 million in October 2011 to 2.3 million in October 2012, CoreLogic said.

Housing experts warned for years that this supply of homes, which swelled in the wake of the housing bust, could persistently bloat home inventory. That, along with the fact that foreclosures sell at steep discounts, would keep home prices down, experts said.

However, investigations into forged foreclosure paperwork (aka "robosigning") and other illegal practices by lenders, and an increase in mortgage modifications and short sales, have helped chip away at the supply of these homes.

Now, as home prices and sales rise amid strong demand for distressed properties from investors, the specter of the shadow inventory continues to recede, CoreLogic experts and other market observers say.

"The size of the shadow inventory continues to shrink from peak levels in terms of numbers of units and the dollars they represent," said Anand Nallathambi, president of CoreLogic. "We expect a gradual and progressive contraction in the shadow inventory in 2013 as investors continue to snap up foreclosed and REO properties and the broader recovery in housing market fundamentals takes hold."

]]>Anand Nallathambicorelogiccorelogic shadow inventoryforeclosure crisisforeclosure inventoryforeclosure supplyhousing supplyshadow inventoryTeke Wiggin2013-01-02T12:35:00 00:00How to Find Out Who Owns a Gun Permit: Learn If Your Neighbors Are Packing Heathttp://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/12/28/how-to-find-out-who-owns-a-gun-permit-steps-you-can-take-to-lea/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/12/28/how-to-find-out-who-owns-a-gun-permit-steps-you-can-take-to-lea/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/12/28/how-to-find-out-who-owns-a-gun-permit-steps-you-can-take-to-lea/#commentsFiled under: NewsA controversial map recently published by The Journal News newspaper in New York marked one of the latest reactions to the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Conn. The map disclosed the identities of all pistol permit holders in Westchester and Rockland counties.

While the move rankled many, it also highlighted a fact that many Americans may not have been aware of: It's sometimes possible to find out if your neighbors have gun permits.

And that's not likely to change anytime soon, added Kristen Rand, legislative director of The Violence Policy Center, because there's actually a "prohibition" in federal law that precludes the bureau from creating a federal registry. She attributed the "prohibition" to lobbying from the National Rifle Association.

The only gun registries that do exist are state registries. Only a minority of states have them, however, since most states do not require residents to obtain a permit to purchase a firearm.

And even in those states with registries, you can never know if your neighbor possesses a gun illegally. You also can't be sure if someone who has a gun permit actually owns a gun. Why? Because state registries only track the permits, not guns.

]]>gun permit holdersgun permit recordsgun permit registrygun permitsgun registryGuns in Americahow to find out who owns a gunHow to Find Out Who Owns a Gun Permitstate gun registriesTeke Wiggin2012-12-28T15:30:00 00:00Real Estate 2012: The Year the Housing Market Turned the Cornerhttp://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/12/21/real-estate-2012-housing-market-highlights/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/12/21/real-estate-2012-housing-market-highlights/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/12/21/real-estate-2012-housing-market-highlights/#commentsFiled under: News,Buying,Investing,Selling,Credit2012 will probably be considered the year that a sinking housing market finally hit bottom and began to rise again. Home prices, home sales and new home construction all substantially increased amid shrinking inventory and record-low mortgage rates. Adding to the drama (and perhaps aiding the recovery): Lenders finally agreed to atone for illegally foreclosing on thousands of borrowers, and politicians and industry stakeholders seriously began talking about mortgage-debt forgiveness.

Here's a look back at 2012's major developments in residential real estate -- along with insight on what lies ahead for the housing market in 2013.

Process server Michael Root says that he knows how angry foreclosure notices can make homeowners -- because one property owner almost killed him and members of his family.

As it turned out, Root wasn't even bringing a foreclosure notice when, he said, he was attacked in June by a homeowner in Wingdale, N.Y.; it was a notice about a credit card bill. But according to Root, the man didn't know that and he'd already been served notice of foreclosure on his home by another process server that day.

The man became so enraged at another legal notice, Root said, that he jumped on a nearby backhoe and drove it into Root's car. "He raised the bucket and pushed it through the back window and almost cut my kid's head off," added Root, who said that he happened to have his wife and daughter with him that day. (Root is pictured above, on the job.)

That alleged attack -- which resulted in criminal charges against the homeowner -- is the kind of mayhem that process servers say they commonly confront as the messengers in our legal system. Although violence toward process servers has always been a problem, because they so often bring gloom to people's doorsteps, those in the industry claim that the risks of their profession have only gotten worse as the housing crisis has pushed 4 million mortgage-holders out of their homes.

Although there's no hard data on the rate of violent incidents between process servers who deliver foreclosure notices and homeowners who receive them, some who represent the servers say there's a strong consensus that the housing crisis has aggravated the situation. It's "an effect of this foreclosure environment that we're in right now," said Eric Vennes, second vice president of the National Association of Process Servers.

Foreclosure filings more than quadrupled between 2006 and 2010, skyrocketing from 718,000 to 2.88 million nationwide, according to online foreclosure marketplace RealtyTrac.

"With the housing meltdown, the amount of process served has greatly increased," said Lance Randall, president of the Florida Association of Professional Process Servers. "It would be safe to associate the increase of attacks with the service processing on the foreclosure market."

'It was Like He had Rabies'

One process server who's observed an increase is William Greenberg, who's delivered foreclosure paperwork for 25 years. He reports being physically attacked by an angry homeowner this year -- in Florida, a state especially hard-hit by the housing downtown. The property owner, an attorney, knocked him to the ground, grabbed his neck and ripped off his server badge after he tried to present him with foreclosure documents, Greenberg said.

"It scared the hell out of me," the 60-year-old added. "I didn't know what he was going to do. It was like he had rabies."

Greenberg, who serves documents in the counties of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade, said that because of the foreclosure epidemic such incidents are much more common than they used to be. He said that he serves "10 times" as much foreclosure paperwork now than he used to.

When Florida foreclosure filings reached their peak in 2009 they were close to seven times as high as they had been in 2006, rising from 75,000 to 517,000, according to RealtyTrac. It reports that the rate in Florida is still three times as high as it was six years ago.

But Greenburg said that the sky-high number of foreclosures isn't the sole reason behind the rising aggression that he sees toward process servers. He thinks that borrowers are also generally more hostile than they used to be.

"Now it's different. Now they are pissed off," he said. "They're looking at us as if we're the ones that are the problem."

Indeed, borrowers are more likely to push back now, suggests research by Michael J. Seiler, chairman of Real Estate and Economic Development at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. He co-authored two studies that explore borrower sentiment in the wake of the housing collapse and they found that Wall Street bailouts, lenders' unwillingness to modify distressed loans, and overall mistrust stemming from the financial crisis have made borrowers more resistant to foreclosure. Seiler said that he could "definitely understand why" that might have an impact on process servers.

"As the economy continues to tank, unemployment remains high and the housing market fails to recover, homeowners' patience will continue to wane," said Seiler. "Mortgage default is a major psychological event for a homeowner."

A 'Noble Profession'

While many might view process servers as tools of an unscrupulous and uncaring mortgage industry, process servers see themselves as integral to a fair legal system. They argue that the notices they serve -- while not good news -- are often necessary to provide people with information they need to defend themselves.

In a foreclosure, the paperwork that servers deliver include a notice of default, a notice of trustee sale (describing when a home is scheduled for auction) and a notice of eviction. In states where judges rule on a foreclosure case, process servers also deliver summonses and foreclosure complaints which inform borrowers when they may appear in court to defend themselves.

Noble or not, some "are not angels" when it comes to the way they serve a legal notice, observed Jim Angleton, owner of Florida lender AEGIS FinServ Corp. "Some of them will just drive by a house and throw it at the front door." Such shoddy service has prompted some borrowers to sue process servers because, depending on state law, servers are required to either post a notice on a recipient's door or personally hand-deliver paperwork. But Angleton agreed with others in the industry that there's been a "tremendous spike in violent, adverse actions" against process servers in Florida since the financial meltdown.

'I've Only had a Gun Pulled on Me Twice'

Crystal Pilant, a process server in southern Idaho, says that she often visits farms that have been in families for generations. Though she said "I've only had a gun pulled on me twice," she estimated that dogs are set upon her "three to four times a month." Pilant (pictured above) carries dog treats in defense.

Process server Steve Yahnke (pictured below) took a less conciliatory approach when, he said, a burly homeowner being served with foreclosure paperwork in DuPage County, Ill., charged him with a tire iron in 2008.

"I produced my gun, and I started backing down the driveway, and he kept coming. But he was swinging," Yahnke said. The homeowner didn't stop, Yahnke said, until he pointed at the ground and told the property owner: "That's where you're going to die."

In some states, process servers may obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon, but unlike law officers, most states don't regard the threat of violence against a process server as a felony. Florida, Illinois and California are the only exceptions, said Kimberly Faber, a spokeswoman for ServeNow, an advocacy group for process servers.

But to avoid interrupting their workdays, many servers don't even bother reporting such incidents, industry leaders say, while those who do often don't press charges.

Greenberg said that he didn't press charges against his assailant because he "didn't want to make the [borrower's] day any worse." Yahnke said he didn't take his assailant to court because he felt pity for the man, who, according to Yahnke, said he wanted to die at the time of the incident.

In fact, the only process server interviewed by AOL Real Estate who has actually pressed charges against a purported attacker is Root, in the backhoe incident.

"They think we're taking their house," Root said of homeowners who get angry when they are served. "We have nothing to do with it."

Nestled into a neighborhood of luxury, this Bel-Air, Calif., mansion is slated for completion in 2014. But even though that's more than a year away, the listing has already cast a bobber for a "discriminating buyer."

Located at the end of a cul-de-sac, the home will feature panoramic canyon views visible from floor-to-ceiling glass windows that will cover much of the home's exterior. Based on the listing photos, which are renderings, you should also expect to find an infinity pool and enclosed terrace constantly populated by bikini-clad models.

The six-bedroom, eight-bathroom home will stretch over 20,000 square feet. It also promises to offer a tree-lined driveway whose roundabout will appear to float on a pond.

Got a tip for House of the Day? Know of an exceptional or unusual property currently listed for sale? Please email krisanne.alcantara@huffingtonpost.com with your suggestions and be sure to include links to listing details and photos. (Due to the volume of response, we unfortunately are unable to respond to each submission.)

]]>bel air homes for salebel air mansionbel air mansionshouse of the dayTeke Wiggin2012-12-13T06:00:00 00:00HUD Mortgage Sale Could Help Thousands of FHA-Insured Borrowers but Unfairly Exclude Othershttp://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/12/05/hud-dasp-mortgage-sale-distressed-borrowers/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/12/05/hud-dasp-mortgage-sale-distressed-borrowers/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/12/05/hud-dasp-mortgage-sale-distressed-borrowers/#commentsFiled under: News,Foreclosures,RefinancingThe U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has begun selling off thousands of seriously delinquent mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration, a move that could save many distressed borrowers from losing their homes. But it also leaves thousands more who are saddled with equally distressed FHA mortgages without any help, raising questions about its fairness.

HUD announced Monday that it cut loose 9,400 loans in the first sale under its expanded Distressed Asset Stabilization Program, and the federal agency plans to sell at least 30,000 more over the next year. The mortgages are going at steep discounts to private investors and nonprofit organizations, which are expected to modify many of the loans. That could save a sizable pool of homeowners from foreclosure and help keep the FHA, which faces a shortfall next year, from seeking a bailout.

While this represents a step forward in combating the foreclosure crisis, HUD's DASP program touches only a fraction of the distressed homeowners with delinquent FHA-insured loans who are in dire need of assistance. The nearly 40,000 loans that HUD plans to have auctioned off by the end of next year is just a sliver of the 700,000 seriously delinquent mortgages on the FHA's books.

A seriously delinquent mortgage is classified as a loan that is 90 days or more past due. A large swath of the FHA loans -- more than the 40,000 being sold, experts say -- are at least six months past due and in foreclosure. That qualifies them for the DASP, assuming that the mortgages' servicers have exhausted all FHA loss-mitigation programs. So that means that thousands of borrowers with mortgages that are eligible for the DASP -- and, arguably, equally as deserving of it -- won't get it and will continue to drift toward eviction.

They won't benefit, for example, from New Jersey Community Capital's plan to save underwater homeowners from foreclosure. The nonprofit organization purchased a pool of 399 of HUD's delinquent loans in the recent sale. Only 275 of them are potentially curable because those borrowers still occupy their homes, but NJCC President Wayne Meyer said that the group believes that it can modify at least half of them. NJCC aims to slash the principal balance of those mortgages down to market value, reducing borrowers' average monthly payments by at least 45 percent, he said.

For example, in one neighborhood targeted by the pool that NJCC bought, the average mortgage balance is $313,000, Meyer said. Under NJCC's plan, that would be sliced nearly in half to just $146,000. If NJCC determines that a borrower couldn't afford a mortgage even after a drastic cut, the nonprofit would offer either an option to rent the property or a nine-month window before it forecloses.

"We're offering, we think, unprecedented benefits," Meyer said.

He added that he believes that HUD won't come anywhere close to selling all the FHA loans that are eligible for the DASP, so it's a stroke of luck for homeowners whose loans got snapped up by NJCC. "If we purchased their loans, it's going to be their good fortune," he said.

HUD spokesman Brian Sullivan could not provide an estimate of the total number of FHA-insured loans that would qualify for the DASP. He said only that many of its seriously delinquent loans are eligible. He also couldn't offer specifics on how HUD chooses to sell certain DASP-eligible loans over others.

There's also an aspect of the program that could be troubling even to distressed borrowers who qualify for the DASP: Some of the borrowers whose mortgages are sold under the program stand a better shot at receiving relief than others.

HUD is selling the loans in two types of loan pools: "Neighborhood Stabilization Outcome" pools and "national" pools. Investors who purchase NSO pools, which target areas particularly hard hit by foreclosures, cannot repossess more than 50 percent of those homes. If they do, they must spend money to help revitalize those communities.

But investors who purchase "national" pools don't have limits on how many homes they can repossess. That raises the possibility that borrowers in national pools will be less likely to receive mortgage relief from the private investors who buy their loans -- because such investors do not have a mandate to save a certain portion from foreclosure.

Still, investors in national pools must wait at least six months before resuming the foreclosure process. And because they are purchasing loans for much less than the loans' outstanding balances, they have a strong incentive to cure many of the mortgages -- or at least use other foreclosure alternatives, such as short sales.

But along with putting many homeowners' lives on hold, Hurricane Sandy also brought housing sales in hard-hit regions to a screeching halt, highlighting how a disaster can delay or altogether derail real estate activity in affected markets.

Sandy's impact on real estate activity "went unbelievably far," said George S. Wonica, a Realtor based in the New York City borough of Staten Island, one of the hardest-hit regions. (Pictured above is one home damaged by Sandy in the Staten Island neighborhood of New Dorp.)

By outright destroying some homes for sale, the storm sank a number of deals in a flash. Since storm damage to a home can significantly drive down its value, both lenders and buyers have reason to want to put the brakes on a deal following a disaster.

"Suddenly, the loan-to-value ratio of the house will not meet the lender's requirements or the federal requirements" if the home is damaged, said Barry Goodman, general counsel to the New Jersey Association of Realtors. In other words, any harm to the home's value could render the original loan amount to buy the home unacceptably large to a lender or the loan's government backer.

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As a result, lenders serving regions that were declared major disaster areas, such as swaths of New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, have mandated that homes under contract be re-inspected for damage. Even sales activity in areas that mostly escaped the worst of Sandy's wrath have been affected, Wonica said.

"Now [home inspectors] have to go back [to those areas] for the banks, and make sure there was no damage, even though they're not near the beach," Wonica said.

Ed Pfaff, a resident of the Staten Island neighborhood of Westerleigh, is one homeowner who hasn't been able to finalize the sale of his home because of the re-inspection directive from lenders. Pfaff, a client of Wonica's, had intended to close the sale of his home in early November. But now the 62-year-old, who plans to move to Florida to retire after the deal closes, expects a delay of at least another month as he awaits the results of a re-inspection of his home.

For the lender financing the purchase of Pfaff's home, asking for a re-inspection made perfect sense. Pfaff said that his home, much to his surprise, emerged unscathed from the storm. But fallen trees smashed into two homes on his block, and "it looks like Godzilla went through Tokyo and knocked down all the telephone poles," he said.

Recently, an inspector went through Pfaff's home snapping photos, but didn't offer an estimate of when the inspection's results would be ready, Pfaff said. "He told me he was very busy," Pfaff said.

Pfaff said that he's confident that the inspection didn't uncover anything that could put the deal in jeopardy.

But if an inspection does find damage to a home, the seller almost always has to pay for necessary repairs in order for the deal to close. Otherwise, the buyer, lender and seller must negotiate a new deal.

"The overwhelming number of times, the seller is responsible for ensuring that the property is in the same condition as when it went into contract," Goodman said. He added that in most deals, a buyer -- and not just the seller -- can push for a last-minute re-inspection.

In addition to fixing any structural damage, the owner of a damaged home under contract must also repair any damaged big-ticket items like gas and electric fixtures, large appliances and the home's heating system, which are all sometimes vulnerable to flooding.

Fortunately for a seller whose home is under contract, damage to neighboring properties usually doesn't affect a pending deal. Even if a toppled tree demolishes the home across the street, or a storm surge swamps the one next door, it shouldn't matter, Goodman said.

That's because in the event of a disaster a lender or buyer usually only asks for a re-inspection, not a reappraisal, Goodman said. Unlike an appraisal, a home inspection only evaluates the home itself, and does not take into consideration those around it.

Goodman noted that both buyer and lender do have the right to ask for a re-appraisal, however, but that following events like Sandy, re-inspections are much more common.

But if your home was up for sale when a disaster struck, and you didn't have any offers on the table yet, then you're in a dicier situation.

As the foreclosure crisis has made abundantly clear, neighborhood home values suffer from any proximity to derelict properties. So if a storm wrecks the roof of a neighboring home, another home in the community could have its value negatively impacted, at least temporarily. For that reason, Goodman said, a homeowner should wait until a neighborhood recovers before attempting to sell a home.

"The reality is that they can put the house on the market, but they'll get a diminished value before the neighborhood is cleaned up," he said.

And it goes without saying, New Jersey Realtor Val Nunnenkamp said, that a seller whose home itself was damaged should mend the property before marketing it.

"We had to temporarily withdraw them from the market to get water out of basements and fallen trees off property," Nunnenkamp said of some of his clients' listings, which are spread across southern New Jersey.

A severe storm such as Sandy may also taint a property's value by revealing its vulnerability to flooding, Goodman said. "Suddenly this area that had not previously flooded now may be declared a flood zone."

Such a designation could chip away at the value of a property or make it less appealing to buyers, who could be required to pay flood insurance by a mortgage provider. However, Goodman said, it's unlikely that a buyer could pull out of a pending deal due to the revelation that a home is vulnerable to flooding -- unless the seller failed to disclose that the home was in an area that had already been designated a flood zone.

Ariel Dagan, a Realtor with Keller Williams Realty in New York City, who serves sellers in Manhattan, has a client who may have to lower the listing price of her lower Manhattan apartment in recognition of the home's vulnerability to storm surge. But a decision to tweak the price of the home would only come after his client pays for thousands in repairs to the property.

Worth millions and just recently renovated, the apartment had its basement flooded with 8 feet of water during Sandy -- right before the owner was about to list it, Dagan said. Tens of thousands of dollars in furniture must be replaced, he said, and the basement has to be gutted.

Those repairs will take a bite out of his client's wallet, he added, since flood insurance is "not something that's really preached in New York City."

]]>disaster home saleshome salesHurricane SandyHurricane Sandy home inspectionHurricane Sandy home saleshurricane+sandy+2012hurricanesandy2012selling flood damaged homeTeke Wiggin2012-11-16T17:00:00 00:00Manhattan Penthouse in Excelsior Co-Op Has 'Floating Staircase' (House of the Day)http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/11/15/manhattan-penthouse-excelsior-co-op-floating-staircase/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/11/15/manhattan-penthouse-excelsior-co-op-floating-staircase/http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2012/11/15/manhattan-penthouse-excelsior-co-op-floating-staircase/#commentsFiled under: News,House of the Day

This Manhattan penthouse in the ritzy Excelsior co-op knocks guests on their heels as soon as they arrive with a "floating staircase" in its entry. The steps ascend beneath an arched skylight to a second floor that opens into the 5,000-square-foot home's living room.

That room (pictured above) is a stunner in itself. Encased in glass, it sports what the listing describes as "baronial" decor. (Hinting at "old money"?) The five-bedroom, three-bathroom home priced at $7.9 million also boasts a gourmet kitchen, breakfast room, office and media room.

To top it all off, its sprawling 2,500-square-foot terrace offers a panorama of the Big Apple's glittering skyline.

Many homes in the Staten Island neighborhood of New Dorp Beach were shattered by Hurricane Sandy. But even in a New York City community as hard hit by the superstorm as this one, Rudy Mienert's house stops passersby dead in their tracks. Slabs of its clapboard exterior litter the ground, the front fence is mangled and a sedan languishes in the yard where storm waters left it.

But most striking is the home's disfigured facade. One section is missing, another is badly damaged. Mienert, a 54-year-old police sergeant at the 5th Precinct in Manhattan's Chinatown, said that a ship container caused the damage when Sandy's surging waters hurled it at the house.

"I expected the basement [to flood], 12 inches on the ground," he said. But the flood's depth turned out to be closer to 12 feet.

On Thursday, Mienert and a friend sloshed through muck in his front yard, in mud-spattered jeans, clearing debris. Mienert says that he's working as quickly as possible to make his home habitable again, but there's a problem: He doesn't know where the money is going to come from. "That's the big question," he said.

Mienert (pictured above in a plaid sweatshirt, with a friend, at his home) is one of many Hurricane Sandy victims who remain in the dark about how much relief money, if any, they stand to receive for their damaged homes. And like others in his neighborhood, Mienert is largely unaware of an array of other aid available to him -- besides compensation from the government or insurance companies.

Homeowners and relief workers in New Dorp Beach who spoke to AOL Real Estate on Thursday said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had not gotten back to many residents since they filed claims for assistance shortly after the storm.

Those homeowners covered by flood and homeowners insurance also said that they have yet to receive settlement offers from their insurance companies.

And many of the hard-hit residents of New Dorp said that they were unaware that they could take advantage of other forms of relief offered by the government, such as special loans, mortgage assistance and temporary housing.

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'I Heard They Would Cut a Check Right Away'

Mienert initially expected prompt assistance from FEMA. "I heard that they would cut a check right away," he said.

If the homeowner has insurance, however, the process is more complicated. FEMA first needs to know how much insurance money a homeowner will receive before it determines how much aid -- if any -- it will grant.
So far, the homeowners that AOL Real Estate spoke to had not had their properties assessed by FEMA. But even if they had, possible relief would still have been out of reach because their insurers had not yet made settlement offers.

As of Thursday, there have been 145,000 requests for aid from New Yorkers, and FEMA has distributed nearly $200 million in response, said FEMA spokesman Bill Rukeyser.

But that doesn't mean much to some of the victims in New Dorp. As far as they're concerned, Uncle Sam is just giving them the cold shoulder.

And even if homeowners like Mienert do receive FEMA grants, the relief money most likely won't be enough to pay for full repairs to their homes. "It's not designed to replace wall-to-wall carpeting," Rukeyser said. "It's not designed to put them back to just the way they were before."

The only problem is that homeowners cannot pursue an SBA loan until they find out whether or not they qualify for a FEMA grant.

"I heard about SBA," said Mienert, leaning on a rake in his front yard, which was covered in slush. "But I have to hear from FEMA first."

Either way, Mienert at least stands a chance of obtaining some relief from FEMA because his home in New Dorp is his primary residence. But for people with second homes impacted by disasters: government relief generally doesn't cover those.

That has dismayed some Sandy victims. Many of the communities that took the brunt of the storm were chock-full of vacation homes.

However, there is an exception for some owners of second homes in hard-hit areas. If someone uses a second home as a rental property -- and can prove it -- the person may be eligible for an SBA loan.

Temporary Housing: Not Just a Rumor

In addition to being hazy on any direct aid that they may be entitled to, storm-hit residents also are struggling to find temporary housing. Sal Conte, a retired military veteran, has been staying with his sister-in-law while he clears out his water-damaged bungalow and waits to hear from FEMA and his insurance providers.

Conte (pictured at his house below) could be eligible for a transitional housing program that was launched by FEMA last week, but he had only heard "a rumor" about such a program and had dismissed it.

Rukeyser said that to apply for the program, a homeowner must call FEMA at 1-800-621-FEMA or register online. He added that providing shelter for Sandy victims has been particularly difficult given the number of people affected by the storm in the New York area.

Mortgage Relief? 'I Need to Find Out About That!'

Some homeowners also appear to be ignorant of housing aid offered separately from FEMA or insurance companies.

Conte's eyes lit up when he heard that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration are extending mortgage relief to people affected by Sandy.

"I need to find out about that!" he said.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have authorized banks that service their loans to grant forbearance, waive late fees and suspend foreclosure proceedings for up to a year. The FHA, meanwhile, has placed a moratorium on foreclosures and has encouraged banks that service its loans to offer borrowers forbearance.

Borrowers are advised to call their lenders or, if applicable, the government-backed entity that owns their mortgage to find out if they qualify for the relief.

The FHA also allows a borrower with an FHA-insured mortgage, whose home was destroyed in a disaster, to obtain a 100-percent financed mortgage (meaning no down payment and, in some cases, no closing costs). Known as a 203(h) loan, it can be used to rebuild a wrecked home or buy another one.

A last option for disaster victims is the FHA-insured 203(k) loan. That loan is often used to fund home renovations. But it can also come in handy for disaster-stricken borrowers. The mortgage's selling point is that it allows a borrower to avoid taking on more than one loan, which is often necessary to repair a home.

"People probably don't know that it exists," said Jeff Onofrio, director of renovation lending at AnnieMac in Mount Laurel, N.J. "It's not immediate. It's not going to answer all of the problems that have happened because of this devastation. But the FEMA thing is tough: The government can only put so much money aside."

For now, Mienert will keep his fingers crossed while he waits for answers. He plans on doing all the necessary cleanup on his home himself. But when it comes time to install new clapboard on his storm-ravaged facade, he'll need to hire some hands. And for now, he doesn't know if he'll have the cash to do it.

A second #housepornthurs victory goes to @PacUnion (Pacific Union International) for tweeting this mind-blowing California villa. The runner-up was a listing submitted by @Ryan_Estately (of the Estately blog).

But the villa's pool takes the cake: Set beneath an ivy-draped terrace and nestled into a flagstone-checkered lawn, it seems to practically float over the countryside that sweeps out before it.

The interior features limestone and hardwood floors, soaring ceilings, touches of granite and floor-to-ceiling windows. And the family room opens onto a covered terrace that overlooks the pool, offering stunning panoramas of the home's intoxicating environs.

As if that weren't enough, the 2.25-acre residence also has a guesthouse that's brand-new. It shares the main home's villa-style design and has a wraparound deck with glass railings.

This home is the winner of last week's #housepornthurs, a weekly Twitter conversation hosted by @aolrealestate. Tweet listings to AOL Real Estate with the hashtag #housepornthurs every Thursday for a chance to have one of your submissions featured as a House of the Day the following week.

Though Occupy Wall Street is fading from the public eye, one of its offshoots continues to garner attention, carrying the torch as perhaps the most potent legacy of a movement that's largely cooled.

Ten months ago, Occupy Our Homes officially launched in more than 20 cities, staging sit-ins at properties in danger of foreclosure to help distressed homeowners stave off eviction. And even in its youth, the movement is gaining steam as it tweaks its campaign tactics in order to reach a larger swath of homeowners and musters additional support from peer advocacy groups and public figures.

Organizers of some of the most active chapters of OOH -- in Atlanta, Minnesota, California and Washington, D.C. -- indicated that, since then, they have fought for more than 40 homeowners headed toward foreclosure and eviction. And, according to them, a majority of the campaigns ended in the favor of the homeowners.

"You look at the Occupy movement and you say, 'What are they doing?' " said Tim Franzen, an organizer with OOH Atlanta. "I think that Occupy Our Homes has brought tangible results for the 99 percent."

Franzen said that his chapter has waged 21 campaigns aimed at saving homeowners from foreclosure since December 2011. Eleven of the completed campaigns resulted in either a loan modification, a short sale or a delayed foreclosure for the homeowners, he added.

Empowering Down-and-Out Borrowers

Jacqueline Barber, a retired detective who lives in Fayetteville, Ga., is one homeowner who has drawn the support of OOH Atlanta. Barber failed to land a loan modification with her lender after slipping on her mortgage payments in 2010 -- when she was diagnosed with cancer -- even though she successfully completed a trial modification, she said.

After being denied help from her bank, as well as city officials and housing groups, she contacted Franzen in early October at the advice of a friend. Now there are several tents erected on her property (pictured at top), a bus parked near her front door and at least one OOH activist always on watch, ready to call for backup if there is an eviction attempt, Barber and organizers said.

Barber (pictured at left with homeowner Ana Casas Wilson, who is resisting eviction with the help of activists in Los Angeles) said that she avoided going public with her case for two years because she didn't want to "air my dirty laundry." But now that she's a focal point of an OOH effort, she said that she feels "pride."

The shift in her mindset is an example of what many point to as Occupy Our Homes' greatest contribution: The movement has helped chip away at the stigma attached to foreclosure and has spurred distressed homeowners and their neighbors to fight back.

"Nobody was telling homeowners that they could say 'no' and that they shouldn't feel ashamed," said Melissa Byrne, an organizer with OOH D.C. But now, because of OOH, many see that "it's important to fight" for themselves and others, she said.

Mike Haack, another OOH D.C. organizer, said that his group has been involved in four campaigns since its launch. One campaign won a homeowner a loan modification, he said, while the other ended after three months when "federal marshals showed up with machine guns and pushed [the homeowner] out." Two other campaigns are ongoing, he added.

OOH has brought many cases of struggling homeowners facing foreclosure into the limelight, and that's put "real faces and real people" to a foreclosure crisis that has claimed millions of homes, said Eric Hersey, a spokesperson for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. The organization's affiliates often partner with OOH groups.

"I think it creates much more empathy: Neighbors standing up to protect neighbors from a system that's stacked against the little guy," Hersey said.

OOH chapters have snowballed in some communities, organizers said. Residents may initially come to the defense of a neighbor only to become rank-and-file members of OOH afterward, participating in other campaigns. Organizers also said the same goes for the homeowners who actually receive the support.

Rev. Michael Vanzant (pictured at left), who is disabled after suffering a stroke and is working with OOH D.C. to hold onto his home, said that he plans to support the group even if it fails to turn back his eviction.

"I've realized that I am not alone and that there are many other people who are in the same situation that I am," said Vanzant, the founder of a D.C. church.

Military veteran Bobby Hull, who received a loan modification thanks to OOH support, is another person who has joined the group to fight on behalf of other distressed homeowners. AOL Real Estate reported on the campaign at his home when it launched with others around the country last December.

Racking Up Endorsements

As Occupy Our Homes groups notch up victories, they also are winning endorsements from high-profile figures that lend credibility to their radical tactics.

The movement may have clinched its biggest endorsement yet when Green Party vice-presidential candidate Cheri Honkala recently appeared at the home of the Cruz family in Minneapolis to voice support for their efforts to defy eviction. Thirty-seven protesters have been arrested during four sit-ins aimed at thwarting the family's eviction there, said Anthony Newby, an organizer for OOH Minnesota.

In response to the pressure, the family's lender, PNC Bank, has reportedly said that it wants to help them stay in their home. Newby said that the Cruz family was foreclosed on because PNC mistakenly rejected a mortgage payment. PNC declined to comment on the case. (The front door of the Cruz family's home, which was damaged in an eviction attempt, according to Newby, is pictured below.)

He added that seven campaigns launched by OOH Minnesota, which has expanded from Minneapolis into St. Paul, won loan modifications for homeowners facing eviction. He also said that 10 other campaigns are ongoing, and a total of 60 homeowners have asked his chapter for help.
Meanwhile, the OOH Atlanta campaign to help Barber drew a visit from whistleblower Lynn Szymoniak, a Florida lawyer who helped expose the "robo-signing" scandal -- in which banks falsified foreclosure paperwork to repossess thousands of homes. The scandal resulted in banks paying a historic $25 billion settlement.

Szymoniak said that she recognized some tell-tale signs of fraud in Barber's foreclosure paperwork during her visit, according to activists who were present.

In D.C., several city politicians have voiced support for the OOH campaign aimed at keeping Vanzant in his home, the reverend said.

Evolving Tactics

The movement probably would not have managed to garner as much support as it has if it hadn't learned to scale itself. Sharing the wider Occupy Wall Street movement's penchant for spectacle, OOH often dumped all its resources into one or two campaigns in its early days.

But "it's gone from activists paratrooping into the front lawn of the homeowner ... to now being much more thoughtful about how people can build their base," Newby said.

Organizers now often prepare homes for full-on occupation but do not camp out at a residence unless it's clear that an eviction is imminent. "We're not going to pull the trigger until we absolutely have to," D.C. organizer Franzen said.

That's allowed organizers to conduct more campaigns simultaneously because, at the touch of a button or the click of a mouse, they can use cell phones and social media to immediately summon support. "We have hundreds of people that are looped into text blasts," Newby said of OOH Minnesota's membership. "When we send it out, it mobilizes people in real time."

Indeed, Occupy Our Homes has leveraged technology and new media to great effect. It produced a YouTube video and raised $34,000 using crowd-funding website LoudSauce.com to pay for the video to appear on networks including CNN, Fox and MSNBC. The group also created the OccupyOurHomes website to provide a field manual for battling foreclosure and an online tool called "start an occupation." The tool is designed to help homeowners enlist the support of local OOH groups.

Gaining Acceptance but More Support Needed

Another key to Occupy Our Homes' success has been its ability to partner with other housing advocacy groups. The Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, for example, was one of the first advocacy groups to link arms with an OOH chapter.

The ACCE, which used anti-foreclosure sit-in tactics before the OOH emerged, offered guidance and support to fledgling OOH activists in Los Angeles. "We were able to share some best practices," said Peter Kuhns, an ACCE organizer. He mentioned teaching activists how to call a press conference as an example. ACCE told AOL Real Estate that it has been involved in 11 "home defense" campaigns, some of which have received support from California OOH groups.

In fact, collaboration between OOH and other groups has become so entrenched that many organizers identify as Occupy Our Homes members while maintaining activist roles in other groups. Franzen, for instance, is a member of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-founded social justice group that he said is helping to "build power" for OOH Atlanta.

In recognition of the cross-pollination between many groups, activists recently formed the Home Defenders League, which lists 25 partners, most of them non-OHH groups.

But OOH faces an uphill battle in winning the backing of many other housing groups, especially those that receive grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

For example, the housing group NeighborWorks America, which funnels aid to hundreds of affiliates around the country, "would be crazy to try and identify and collaborate," Hersey said. A primary role of NeighborWorks, he said, is to "procure funds from the government."

Newby said a number of organizations have committed to working with OOH Minnesota only to pull out at the last minute. "The radical home defense concept of taking 30-plus arrests at one home is really something that these groups have a hard time getting their board to move on," he said.

OOH's arguably coercive tactics have drawn criticism from some industry observers. Mark Calabria, director of regulation and financial studies at the Cato Institute, said OOH takes "legitimate protest and moves it towards trespass."

He also questioned whether OOH chooses homeowners that are truly deserving of support.

"It's not clear to me that Occupy folks are really going through the process of, 'Have they been cheated or not?'" Calabria said. "We have a court system."

But other experts like Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, said that taking direct action may be the only way to ensure that a lender gives a borrower a fair shake.

"Sometimes, desperate times require desperate measure," Rheingold said. "If this is going to get the banks' attention, then I applaud these folks."

Regardless, OOH chapters are increasingly gaining support from non-profits that were once leery of its aggressive approach to homeowner advocacy. For example, Newby said, a faith-based group known as ISAIAH -- which he said repeatedly shunned overtures from OOH Minnesota -- recently committed to holding a prayer vigil with OOH to protest the eviction of St. Paul, Minn., resident Dianne E'laine.

"They say [lenders] don't like bad publicity," E'laine said about OOH and ISAIAH, which boasts more than 100 member congregations.

Speaking of saving her home, she added: "I'm thinking there's still a way."